"I support today's Order on the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) three-year performance assessment.

Two things became clear to me in my review of NERC's three-year assessment. First, NERC, the Regional Entities and industry have accomplished a great deal in the past few years and those accomplishments should be recognized and commended. Second, while NERC, the Regional Entities and industry should be proud of their efforts much work remains in the years to come to ensure the reliable operation of the nation's grid.

I have observed that industry and the Commission share the common goal of the safe and reliable operation of the nation's grid. We have had occasional and respectful differences over how to achieve that goal (especially evident March 18), and given the technical complexity of our undertaking such differences are likely to arise in the future.

But the important thing going forward is that we do what we can to work collaboratively toward the common goal. To that end, the draft order indicates upcoming open and public technical conferences to be led by the Commissioners, at which we can hear directly from NERC and industry and solicit discussion regarding standard development, enforcement, compliance as well as broad policy issues. I found the July 6 technical conference to be extremely helpful in this regard. However, I urge NERC and the industry to not wait for the formal technical conferences. I hope we can continue ongoing, informal discussions and feedback about the best ways we can work towards our shared goal.

Finally, I want to express my thanks to the team for their hard work on this Order.

Again, I support today's Order and I look forward to working with my colleagues, our international colleagues, our staff, NERC, the Regional Entities and industry."